I've been cleaning the debris out of the seasonal creek by my house which has been running all winter. I plan to have a new metal roof before the next hurricane season (sept).

Politics isn't near as fun as engineering. After the next few years we may both retire and go camping. I may shift to 'enjoy it while you can'.

A Solar fuel spill is otherwise known as a sunny day!The energy density of a tank of FF's doesn't matter if it's empty.I will see your google and raise you an infinity!https://monitoringpublic.solaredge.com/solaredge-web/p/kiosk?guid=19844186-d749-40d6-b848-191e899b37db

If I have to think about society (you folks), I think the Green New Deal is a big step in the right direction. Sure it has holes in it, but it is a good starting point. We need to recognize that eliminating FFs has to be the end goal. You should set a goal and then figure out how to get there. No matter what anyone says, FFs are a dead end. We deal with it now or later. The longer we wait the more it will hurt and the more damage we do.

When Kennedy said we would put a man on the moon there were hundreds of nay-sayers that said it couldn't be done. But we set the goal and worked the issues until we were successful. I think cleaning up our energy sources will be much easier than that!

The economics is already headed that way. All it will take is a focused plan and we will be making things better instead of worse. The public supports a transition to green energy without knowing about the details. The youth these days is going to shove it down your throat. They are tired of excuses. So am I!!

Ok, it may take twenty years and lifestyle changes are part of it. Us old folks need to let go and let the kids lead the way. They don't have our excuse to hide behind. They will live long enough to see drastic changes and they know it.

Oh, and I would add reparation to your list. We are going to have to clean up the mess we've made.

A Solar fuel spill is otherwise known as a sunny day!The energy density of a tank of FF's doesn't matter if it's empty.I will see your google and raise you an infinity!https://monitoringpublic.solaredge.com/solaredge-web/p/kiosk?guid=19844186-d749-40d6-b848-191e899b37db

You are very liberal with other people's money. Reparations for what? Not a single person alive (in America) has ever owned a slave or been one.

But to the larger question. We will adapt, as humans always have. The Green new deal is an economic disaster and won't be adopted. There is no reason for it except to appease the earth firsters and other assorted environmental wackos. We will stop using fossil fuels when the price tells us to. Not before.

Around 10 minutes into the video, on the wheat belt that is being pushed out of Australia, down under

Number 4 just after USA, Canada and Russia, will be gone next decade or the one after that.Say the other ones manage to produce far less under the stress of abrupt CC.The rest of the world to a third down to be optimistic Well, Australia is only listed between Turkey and Germany for year 2016. Number 9 to 11 on the map.

A good Aussie year makes about 25 million tonnes, bad around 15, very bad 10 million tonnes.So lets take it from bad to worse on a global scale: 2003, total of 550 million ton, against 750 in 2016. Last 2 years are not listed.

Adding up the top 20 or so: 297 Mton.Say the 20 smaller producers manage to equal a bad year and make: 53 Mton.That totals 350 Mton wheat for humans to distribute starting from a bad year worldwide and a 20 to 33% reduction for abrupt CC.Down under 50% under the worst year 1996-2016.

After losing our sea ice on the NH, I fully expect this to be true from then on, say from 2022.Current harvest above 700 Mton, half after the sea ice is gone, a permanent loss of half our harvest.I figure the other crops are more or less equally sensitive to an abrupt CC.

So how are you going to adapt, plan for this?Problem is food, not enough to go around, half of humanity will peacefully give up?

Our management is prepping to bug out around 2030, private Yachts with anti sea to air rockets, sound weapons….private farms with army, underground installations……The smart thing to do unless you want to get caught up in the traffic jam, the walking dead. I hope we still have another decade of things running smoothly, BAU but I prep for the worst, things falling apart next year, 2020.Since there is no way to defend your home or doomstead, you should be a ble to hunt and gather, and find a large forest, the stage where you do your battle.

Around 10 minutes into the video, on the wheat belt that is being pushed out of Australia, down under

Number 4 just after USA, Canada and Russia, will be gone next decade or the one after that.Say the other ones manage to produce far less under the stress of abrupt CC.The rest of the world to a third down to be optimistic Well, Australia is only listed between Turkey and Germany for year 2016. Number 9 to 11 on the map.

A good Aussie year makes about 25 million tonnes, bad around 15, very bad 10 million tonnes.So lets take it from bad to worse on a global scale: 2003, total of 550 million ton, against 750 in 2016. Last 2 years are not listed.

Adding up the top 20 or so: 297 Mton.Say the 20 smaller producers manage to equal a bad year and make: 53 Mton.That totals 350 Mton wheat for humans to distribute starting from a bad year worldwide and a 20 to 33% reduction for abrupt CC.Down under 50% under the worst year 1996-2016.

After losing our sea ice on the NH, I fully expect this to be true from then on, say from 2022.Current harvest above 700 Mton, half after the sea ice is gone, a permanent loss of half our harvest.I figure the other crops are more or less equally sensitive to an abrupt CC.

So how are you going to adapt, plan for this?Problem is food, not enough to go around, half of humanity will peacefully give up?

Our management is prepping to bug out around 2030, private Yachts with anti sea to air rockets, sound weapons….private farms with army, underground installations……The smart thing to do unless you want to get caught up in the traffic jam, the walking dead. I hope we still have another decade of things running smoothly, BAU but I prep for the worst, things falling apart next year, 2020.Since there is no way to defend your home or doomstead, you should be a ble to hunt and gather, and find a large forest, the stage where you do your battle.Wheat

In Canada the drop in wheat production is due to farmers switching to higher value crops and crop rotation. Western Australia’s dry land farmers seems to be maintaining and increasing wheat production, I think your reference video is cherry picking doom.

Since 2000 there has been a significant increase in canola hectares. Recently this increase has coincided with growth in pulse crops like peas and lentils. The growth in canola and pulse crops has impacted cereal production, with wheat showing a slight downward trend since 2000 and oats and barley hectares off significantly.In the last three years hectares seeded for Western Canada’s two major crops – canola and wheat – have seen a continuation of the longer term trends with slight declines in wheat hectares and increases in canola.Canola hectares exceeded the area seeded to wheat for the first time in 2017. Wheat is estimated to be back on top for 2018. Wheat plays an important role in farmers’ crop rotations and is expected to continue this role over the long-term.

The area sown to wheat in WA over the past 20 years has remained relatively stable at between 4-5 million hectares but over this same period production has increased strongly with improved yields. As a result we are seeing production of 8-10 million tonnes per annum.

Grown under rain-fed conditions WA wheat production can fluctuate from season to season as can be seen in the chart above.Seasonal variability, particulary since the year 2000, combined with a high Australian dollar (export wheat is usually sold in US dollars) has placed increasing pressure on wheat profitability. Despite this, a recent study of WA wheat producers found almost two thirds of WA farms can be classed as 'growing' or 'strong' due to their use of technology to create economies of scale and their managerial and social characteristics.

@ jawagord ....re Australian conditions ....NSW irrigators are on 0% water allocation this year ....the rice crop is expected to be one of the smallest since the 1930's ...for example.

Both the south east , NSW , Vic , ACT and SA , are trying to cope with a trend of decreasing rainfall ....and that trend is also evident in WA ( the south west ) grain belt .....but it is the combination of less rain and higher average temps which causes the damage .

40 degrees C in the shade is tough on most commercial plant and animal agricultural species ......even the flies struggle !

I thought unmitigated PO would be a systemic economic problem. So the ideal mitigation was independence from that system even to the extent of "collapsing ahead of the rush." My 5 rules of PO planning were/are: Don't buy/borrow/specialize/starve/depend. As individuals I think CC planning is just about the opposite.

Seems to me CC might affect economies generally, eventually, but it's very possible to be catastrophic individually overnight. Think Bomb Cyclones, atmospheric rivers, flood, fire, drought, etc. Less Global Systemic Collapse and more 10 Plagues (Pharaoh gave in after 7 but we won't have that choice, LOL). For me it is relatively easier to be economically independent than to be economically resilient, especially to multiple threats.

My WAG is CC can be mitigated to an extent—for a time— with wealth, whether personal or societal. Massive rebuilding/relocation after a flood is doable, if it is an isolated event. But rebuilding over and over, either individually or collectively can only happen some certain number of times before excess resources (wealth) is exhausted.

I'm kinda sanguine about food. Remember first that half of all food calories grown are used to feed animals. Back in the day "a chicken in every pot" was a big deal—and they were talking about on Sunday, and even then meat was basically seasoning. Yeah, I realize many cultures never touched anything green but we can do fine without much meat/dairy and go way back in history (to like 1960) and let the ruminants ruminate on grass. We can get by quite well with much less and much less varied food. Consider that the San Joaquin is one of the most prolific ag regions and it is increasingly dedicated to almonds and grapes. While those are well suited to the climate, they are certainly not calorie food. As well we will likely see genetic breakthroughs similar to the green revolution that prevented the great starvation of the population bomb that improve yields in drought/heat. But food shortage is mostly about distribution so ability to get in on the distribution is key and that also means money.

I'm no more optimistic that there will be a Green New Deal than I was there would be an overwhelming tide of Transition Town initiatives. OTOH, transitioning is costly, which means jobs. I'd think better to spend money we don't have building infrastructure with a tangible payback rather than tossing the same money over the levees in New Orleans only to abandon them in a few decades anyway.

My biggest worry about PO was the inability to transition away from FF to expensive, unsustainable renewables. Turns out that NEW RE is now cheaper than just operating FFs. Obviously there are sunk costs but our more realistic chance at a fast transition away from FF is the reason I'm less concerned about PO nowadays than I've been since the '90s. More to do with the affordability of improved PV/wind/storage/vehicle tech than the tech of directional drilling & fracking.

So at this point (I've maybe 25 years to worry about) I'm sorta halfway between PO & CC. The Pacific NW is beautiful and mild but in the upper range of overhead. We'll likely soon move back to the impoverished hinterland where minds are small but so is the cost of living (LOL skiddin ). Very small plot of 2-3ac and either a shimmy-shack amenable to gutting and insulating/tightening or bare land on which to build small/tight/resilient.

The legitimate object of government, is to do for a community of people, whatever they need to have done, but can not do, at all, or can not, so well do, for themselves -- in their separate, and individual capacities.-- Abraham Lincoln, Fragment on Government (July 1, 1854)

Lots of good thoughts there Pops. Personal adaptation/mitigation is different than Federal.

My current thinking is we need to start educating the country away from the current Consumerisim model back towards Capitalisim/Socialisim provided it’s a flat or declining growth model. So on a Federal (Global?) level we need to accept a completly new economic paradigm.

But really is that so far from your Reduce/Reuse/Recycle? Or “Don't buy/borrow/specialize/starve/depend”? I think not.

This is where I really split with the GND and it’s calls for massive infrastructure programs. There a few, damn few, I can support such as converting the grid from HVAC to HVDC. That would save something in the order of 7%-15% (off hand) in and of itself. The current privitiazarion of the grid into local segments seems to foreclose that we could effect any nationally coordinated policy. This buildout would likely require nationalization if the grid backbone. Perhaps the failure of the California power company can provide the impetus for such a move. But I digress, that’s a rare big infrastructure job I support.

By being moderately conservative we could cut our fossils fuel usage fairly dramatically, and increase our budget at the same time. But we can’t do that unless we dump the Consumerisim economic approach. We need a return to valuing efficiency, to reward conservation, to savings. All of that is heresay to the Economists.

CONSUMERISIM

Consumerism is a social and economic order that encourages the acquisition of goods and services in ever-increasing amounts. With the industrial revolution, but particularly in the 20th century, mass production led to an economic crisis: there was overproduction—the supply of goods would grow beyond consumer demand, and so manufacturers turned to planned obsolescence and advertising to manipulate consumer spending.[1] In 1899, a book on consumerism published by Thorstein Veblen, called The Theory of the Leisure Class, examined the widespread values and economic institutions emerging along with the widespread "leisure time" in the beginning of the 20th century.[2] In it Veblen "views the activities and spending habits of this leisure class in terms of conspicuous and vicarious consumption and waste. Both are related to the display of status and not to functionality or usefulness."[3]

In economics, consumerism may refer to economic policies which emphasise consumption. In an abstract sense, it is the consideration that the free choice of consumers should strongly orient the choice by manufacturers of what is produced and how, and therefore orient the economic organization of a society (compare producerism, especially in the British sense of the term).[4] In this sense, consumerism expresses the idea not of "one man, one voice", but of "one dollar, one voice", which may or may not reflect the contribution of people to society.

GND is a political initiative. Its an alternative to "I'll bring back all the coal jobs" — obviously much better than the previous attempt: "I'll put the coal miners out of business." LOL As far as it goes we need to improve infrastructure while we can and replacing FF jobs with RE jobs is as good an excuse as any.

But I doubt we're going to regulate or educate away consumerism any more than we're going to directly regulate emissions when it is not in the interests of the ownership. That would be like trying to teach a bowerbird not to hoard buttons and tinfoil, or a hen to peck the ground every minute of the day LOL. Gen Xers are proud of their work martyrdom.

My thought is the only societal hope is that RE continues to fall in cost, pop growth continues downward and perhaps that actively lowering emissions somehow becomes profitable.

Some have talked about a kind of spiritual awakening and maybe that will come. Tomorrow kids are protesting. If they manage to not lose their minds and start a civil war with their book bags like the women tried to do with their pink hats, maybe they can have an effect... the hippies didn't back in the day.

The legitimate object of government, is to do for a community of people, whatever they need to have done, but can not do, at all, or can not, so well do, for themselves -- in their separate, and individual capacities.-- Abraham Lincoln, Fragment on Government (July 1, 1854)

First of all I do not wish bad things to happen to people, let alone mammals or other life to go extinct.Yet we are in the middle of the 6th great extinction period because of our collective actions, humans putting al kinda stress on the habitat of other life around us, mainly for our taking down forests worldwide and changing the Chemistry of water, sweet and salt.

We are without doubt in the middle or better, the start of abrupt CC, plant life and trees cannot cope with extreme weather, they cannot move or adapt like mammals, we do.Farmers big and small are panicking, go broke, kill temselves or seek other ways to make a living, on the radio yeaterday on olive farming in Italy....the winter storms have devastated whole forests and vineyards, first dry as hell, then floods as in biblical, cold spell and then again unseasonably warm, it is the extremes that matter, not the average worldwide temperatures.

And this is just the start I think, we thank God still have ice on top to keep things in check, moderate the temperature swings.I wish we had more time, things would stay BAU but my mind tells me that we will have the storm, like Noah, 40 days and nights of rain after the first BOE, rains in which you can hardly breath, meters of rain of one single storm. Bone dry for months at other times.

I do find the power of these storms awesome, when watching the sea, waves breaking on the beach I were for the water, not for whatever people make, including my own little fortresses, I love to see the sea taking back the land, nature rules Trees that stood here in my town Roosendaal for all my life, decades, are now being blown down, the intensity of the storms is increasing, same for wave hight. Summer, winter and inbetween, hail rain snow, everything is gearing up, energy in the weathersystem.I drive by the port of Antwerp every day and night, thanks to Newfie the sailor:

Check out this video filmed Sunday at the Port of Antwerp as strong winds pummeled the area.According to the uploader, the port experienced hurricane-force winds gusts or more than 64 knots – a 12 on the Beaufort scale.As you can see, the winds were so strong that they knocked over multiple stacks of containers on the dock, even blowing one 40-foot ONE container into the harbor.

Yes we can adapt and find clever ways to deal with a changing habitat but that has limits and the loss of half our harvest is lethal for our cult, except if you are already hunting, fishing and gathering.

Is consumerism buying a sailboat?Flying to the cloud forest to look at birds?Flying to anywhere?A new computing machine because the old one won't compute?Wearing out a pair of high priced boots walking trails?Hummus instead of chickpeas?

I own lots of tools, likely more than I'll ever get the value of, is that consumerism? I own expensive Macs not cheap PCs, does that make me a consumerist? OTOH, I once made well over $100k plus annually and spent it all and then some. I decided at some point to make less because it was too much work, too much stress; does that make me less culpable as a consumer because I necessarily consume less?

Seems to me excess consumption is any purchase or product I'm not interested in, especially if I'm old and already bought and tossed lots of stuff. LOL So again, aside from just having a hobby horse to ride and a gripe to spout to the other old farts between shots at the spitoon, blaming "consumerism" is a dead end because we are all consumers and on this site we're likely super-consumers because we likely have 1% incomes in the global scheme.

There really isn't a lot of mitigation to choose from in the macro, either reduce FF emissions via RE or reduce the number of consumers causing emissions.We aren't going back to the trees voluntarily.

The legitimate object of government, is to do for a community of people, whatever they need to have done, but can not do, at all, or can not, so well do, for themselves -- in their separate, and individual capacities.-- Abraham Lincoln, Fragment on Government (July 1, 1854)

I have to say that Pops probably is closer to what it will be than Newfie. That being said to throw up your hands and say...I have no control, it is beyond me, whatever" strikes me as a wee bit of a copout. I have said numerous times here that if we can embrace a living where we meld oil and gas consumption with wind, water, and nuclear power, conversion of a lot of our fleet to electric etc. then the disaster that many here would like to see will not happen. We need to get past this BS about "oh you created global warming and we need to shut you down" and the other stuff about "we have reserves that will last forever". Both are stupid and both don't get us anywhere. There is a way forward but it requires actually understanding the issues and then thinking about the solutions. Entertaining complete BS by some members here distracts from what we need to do. Lets put facts in front of our discussions, please.

I’m trying to answer the question “What should we do?” In a more sane and reasonable manner. And yeah, the issues are broad and sufficiently overlapping that there are actions we can all agree upon, even if we disagree on the motive.

Whitefang wrote:First of all I do not wish bad things to happen to people, let alone mammals or other life to go extinct.

Yet we are in the middle of the 6th great extinction period because of our collective actions, humans putting al kinda stress on the habitat of other life around us, mainly for our taking down forests worldwide and changing the Chemistry of water, sweet and salt.

Yes we can adapt and find clever ways to deal with a changing habitat but that has limits and the loss of half our harvest is lethal for our cult, except if you are already hunting, fishing and gathering.

Nobody wishes hardship on our fellow humans and on other life forms. At the same time though there is a kind of welcoming to forces that will be disruptive to all that we recognize as un sustainable. This is the paradox of our times.

It is not without precedent what is happening today, there have been times in the history of life on our planet where disruptive events punctuated stability. There were winners and losers in past events just as there will be this time around as well, a great churning over of species going extinct and niches opening allowing for a momentary bloom of speciation to occur. This time around it will be caused by the hand of man in all his hubris. There are cultural norms that will also go extinct and not survive these punctuated times. It will act as a great reset switch to use a more digital term. It will go down deep to some of the cornerstones of our collective identity.

That is exactly what is necessary for deep fundamental change to happen. That is why as we despair the suffering we know is coming and has already begun we should at the same time welcome the disruptions. They represent the only real and viable force to reshuffle the deck for humanity to break the shackles of being tied to his current parasitic manifestation as Kudzu Ape and attempt a more balanced path where humility replaces hubris and where reverence replaces greed.

Let us pray.

Our resiliency resembles an invasive weed. We are the Kudzu Apeblog: http://blog.mounttotumas.com/website: http://www.mounttotumas.com